Sorry if I'm getting old... don't know if that was posted before. But there's an OG thread about a Swedish shred guy (who doesn't dress like a guy) and lots of sour grapes posts about how there are much better players in Sweden...

This tune reminded me. "From the crystal ice cathedrals of a mystic land called Sweden...."

Yeah, you posted this before, I don't remember where & don't give a damn. I LOL everytime I hear it. The operatic-style vocals are as funny as the lyrics. The line that kills me is "He's like totally neoclassical, dude, he kicks your ass with each etude." Thanks for posting it again.

Brian Kenney Fresno invited anyone who didn't love Yngwie outside for a fight before playing that song, when I saw him. Yngwie did an early tour with T-Shirts that said on the front "Yngwie Who?" and the back... "Yngwie Fucking Malmsteen, That's Who!"

So it's Yngwie's own humor. There were paired buttons (pins) with the same phrases. Wish I had those.

I don't know where "disrespect" comes from. He's a rocker not a poseur man!

Maybe because when Yngwie hit the scene he had the SHITTIEST ATTITUDE POSSIBLE!

Seriously, his early interviews are epic excursions into inflated ego. It's one thing to be gifted and skilled, it's quite another to be disparaging of those that paved the way for you, and Malmsteen was certainly guilty of that early in his career. He was fast and fluent, but he was a DICK!

Does anybody remember the interview with McLaughlin and Schvingy?Must've been in the "inflated" stage, still. Yngwie claims: "I never practice! I just go out and play!" McLaughlin says to the interviewer: "You can tell from listening to his music that he doesn't practice."

Other than that, things were respectful and distant. Or faux-close. McLaughlin was just the wise old head in the relationship.

I wish I could... I just remember from the paper copy back when I was young and still playing and the whole earth was lush, verdant fields... (sniffle)It was classic, you're so right about that! (And the world is a much less lonely place now that I know someone else remembers it).

In addition, that might be perceived as negative. And I already got one death threat from this thread, from somebody who just doesn't get the point at all. I love Sweden and all its people, and don't want to contribute to any negativity. I don't want to give any particular Swedish person a forum to have his ego eclipse just one Crystal Ice Cathedral, nay just one blade of grass, from that country, -- NAY I TELL YOU, no one's ego should besmirch that Mystic Land.

Nay, I say again, in spite of loving John McLaughlin, the trade-off is just not worth it.

Besides, I wouldn't want to obscure the larger issue, which is after all, The Genius of Brian Kenney Fresno:

Guys, I found it. Fascinating... http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/mclaughlin/art/flash.html

Apart from the guitar case he's carrying, John McLaughlin could be just another splendid-looking bon vivant sauntering down Paris' Place Vend?me. "You know, I'm quite happy to come today," he says about this interview. "But it seems that the only thing we have in common is the guitar."

John McLaughlin had a funny name once too. He gave guitar lessons to Jimmy Page, invented fusion, used acid, wore white, and made the world safe for virtuosos like Malmsteen. John is a composer whose work has been played from the symphony orchestra pits to the downtown jazz scene of New York; it's almost culture shock to listen to him thrash his way through the classic Birds of Fire or Miles Davis' Jack Johnson after hearing his two current releases, Mediterranean Concerto and Live at the Royal Festival Hall, with Trilok Girtu and Kai Eckhardt. By contrast, Malmsteen's Eclipse, his fifth studio effort, shows signs of retread for the young Swede. Though Yngwie is adamant about his status as a trendsetter, it's clear by the way he thumps his chest and knocks over table fixtures that in his heart he knows he's still got a lot of room to grow. It would be pretty easy to dislike him if he weren't such a heavy guitarist. It's not much of a struggle to dislike him anyway.

But sage John understands, as do the patrons of a Paris restaurant called Vishnou (of all names). Yngwie's loud disavowals of practice and influences are harder to swallow than the spiciest vindaloo; it intensifies the irony that he built his reputation on a musical ideal the man who quietly munches chutney beside him created 20 years earlier. Maybe all these two do have in common is their instrument after all. Small wonder our talk eventually found its way to the French Open. Here they are, the John McEnroe and Arthur Ashe of the guitar - gut string tension of a different kind.

MUSICIAN: Although you've both made a lot of strides for guitar, you've also received criticism for forsaking emotional depth. Is there such a thing as overdeveloped technique?MALMSTEEN: I think it's not technique, really, but how you use it. I think that technique can also be how you play a vibrato. Vibrato is, in my opinion, the most important thing - not speed. I think both of us, actually, are kind of known for brrrrrrrr.McLAUGHLIN: Technique is a global concept, isn't it? What people do, particularly with guitars, is they split this global concept into things like speed, hammering, thumb, pulling off, vibrato. I agree with Yngwie, it's not a question of technique, it's whether you use the technique or whether the technique uses you. The thing is because it's guitar. Over the years people have used me to say, "Technique, fast, and it doesn't mean anything." And it's peculiar to the guitar.

MUSICIAN: Yeah, no one ever said Coltrane played fast.McLAUGHLIN: Or even Oscar Peterson, who has a phenomenal technique.MALMSTEEN: I think maybe it has to do even with the guitar's being used in all sorts of different genres; it's also the prime instrument in rock'n'roll, which is the common man's music, not jazz, and they are not used to having extreme technique in a rock'n'roll concert. They're used to hearing Eric Clapton or something.

MUSICIAN: What are the dangers of...MALMSTEEN: I don't think there are any dangers.

MUSICIAN: John's played his share of thrash, but he's also played delicate acoustic music, and there are times when you've brought together very opposing ideas. What are the dangers of bring the common man's music to that level of sophistication?MALMSTEEN: I think it's making it more interesting.McLAUGHLIN: I don't think it's a danger at all. I think it's a funny word to use. It's not danger. Every generation's going to come up with its own way of looking at things. Technique and mind and people are evolving all the time. I mean, look at the difference between the rock'n'roll of the '50s and the rock'n'roll of the '80s. Worlds apart. There are so many different variations. Why? Because there is evolution going on all the time. To hear a guitar player like Yngwie is really nice for me. I've seen you on MTV.MALMSTEEN: My really commercial song.McLAUGHLIN: I don't know. I came in in the middle, and I see somebody playing the guitar like that, wild, and it stays with me. You played some amazing shit.MALMSTEEN: That record's so old to me.McLAUGHLIN: When you're my age and people say, "Yeah, what about this record I like, that you made 20 years ago?" Then you can start to worry. A guitar player like Yngwie wouldn't have come out in the 1950s or even the 1960s. Things have changed. People like Coltrane, Miles, they've had their effect, especially on popular music, rock'n'roll, the working man's music, as they say. It's like jazz in the sense that it takes what it needs and doesn't lose its own identity.MALMSTEEN: It's much more demanding listening to jazz. It's come to a point now like where fusion jazz is musician's music. I love to listen to Jeff Berlin, Allan Holdsworth - I love him. How many records does Allan Holdsworth sell? Ridiculously few. Bon Jovi sells a shitload of records, and I can't stand it. McLAUGHLIN: There's two different kinds of success. Artistic, musical and commercial success don't always go together.MALMSTEEN: I try to put it together.McLAUGHLIN: But I have to admire people who are true to themselves, whether they sell a lot of records or not.

MUSICIAN: What about improvisation?McLAUGHLIN: Improvisation is work. You don't just do anything. You have to know what the scales are, you have to know what the harmonic movement is. Unless you know what you're doing, you don't just start improvising. Ask any classical musicians. They have incredible technique, they can read anything, they can interpret anything, but you ask them to improvise and they won't be able to do it, because it's another way of thinking. It's work.

MUSICIAN: Does that mean that valid improvisation can't happen early in a musician's development?McLAUGHLIN: Of course it can, on the condition that he's working towards that, but if you're a classical interpreter, you don't even think about improvisation, so you cannot improvise. I have a lot of friends in the classical world. They would love to improvise, but they don't know how to. Even if you have tremendous technique, it doesn't mean you can improvise.MALMSTEEN: There's not one note in any of my solos that's not completely spontaneous. Straight off. Every night I play onstage, it's a different solo for every song. Of course, it's in the same framework: If it's A minor, I play in A minor. I venture out to G, G major or E phrygian or do some diminished or chromatic runs or whatever, but it's always improvised. Every solo on every record. Most jazz guitar players do that, but rock guitar players don't do it, classical guitar players don't do it. If you hear a live tape of Michael Schenker or Eddie Van Halen, they play exactly the same solo as on the record.McLAUGHLIN: I find that hard to do.MALMSTEEN: I can't do that [laughs]. I can't remember. Too many notes...

MUSICIAN: After playing for a while, your hands might start doing gestures they've become accustomed to doing. It's an unintentional structuring.MALMSTEEN: Oh, I make a great effort to avoid that. Don't ever get into a rut. For many years, I used to construct my guitar solos: "Okay, I throw in that run, some symmetric pattern, do that pattern, then do an arpeggio, then that way and this way." Now it's completely free-flowing. Most rock guitar players have that certain framework in each key. That's all they play.McLAUGHLIN: You have to structure your thought process. You have to structure your way in music. But these structures should not be permanent. You should be ready to break them at any moment. Be ready to break down and bring into question everything you do: your phrasing, even how you look at the instrument. Listen, I'm maybe twice Yngwie's age, and I'm still doing the same work. I'm still questioning what I do. We are creatures of habit. The thing is to recognize when good habits become bad. At that moment, you've got to be ready to break them and find yourself a little bit in the unknown. But that's music.MALMSTEEN: Yeah, but that's very hard. Very few musicians would be able to do that in my genre of rock'n'roll. Musicians are boxed in, very boxed in. Same chord progressions, same scales.McLAUGHLIN:That's dangerous, to use your word. It's hard to evolve. This is where your technique starts to run you: When you're not ready to break the structure of your mind, how you approach your improvisation, at a moment's notice. I practice and I still work hard.MALMSTEEN: I don't.McLAUGHLIN: I'm in the middle of breaking a lot of things. But I'm happy to. Because there are periods where there is no need to. Something happens in your life and suddenly you start to think differently, you start to hear differently what you're doing. You say, "It's time. There's something wrong. I don't like the way I go from A to B. There's another way to do it and I have to find it." So you start to break structures and the way you perceive harmonic movement, or your guitar, keyboard, whatever. It's all the same. It's a way of perception. Music is a structure. And these are what we have to be ready to break. But there are moments when I don't think at all, and you're just flying, everything is just working beautifully.MALMSTEEN: I understand exactly what you're saying. I'm happy right now with what I'm doing, and I feel very comfortable...McLAUGHLIN: [Patting Yngwie's back] Don't worry! It's gotta happen!MALMSTEEN: A couple of years ago, I had a very serious car accident. That changed me. I had a brain hemorrhage and the nerve endings in my hand were not working. I started practicing like crazy like I did when I was fifteen. But this injury healed, and all the practice I put in elevated me to another plateau. I might sound a little like I'm bragging, but right now I feel like there's no boundaries to what I can do. It's brrr like crazy, much more than I could do before. McLAUGHLIN: The value of work! Two-and-a-half months ago I broke my left index finger.MALMSTEEN: Phew, that's a nightmare.McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, it was a nightmare. I was having nightmares. I was waking up in the middle of the night sweating. But there's a good side. Nothing's all bad and nothing's all good. Already this accident has affected the way I think. MALMSTEEN: How long did it take before you could play again?McLAUGHLIN: I started two weeks ago. It took over two months before I could touch the instrument.MALMSTEEN: For me it was about two, three months. I wouldn't do it because I knew I was going to hate myself. I was in the hospital, I was very injured, and my friends brought me guitars: "You sure you don't want to play?" "No. Take that thing away." But that was a little bit of motivation. As I said, you mustn't fall into a rut.McLAUGHLIN: I'm a very optimistic guy. I believe everything is a blessing, or in disguise. Anyway, I was a little crazy. I'm sure you were a little crazy after your accident.MALMSTEEN: No, actually I mellowed out soon after that. I've always been a little bit of a madman. I wouldn't want to put myself up with the great composers, but what you hear about Mozart and Paganini, like the crazy lifestyles and women and whatever, I'm a bit like that actually.MUSICIAN: John, you smile as though you understand.MALMSTEEN: You've been through it all.

MUSICIAN: When you got to a certain age you cut your hair and wore white and disavowed alcohol, but here you are sitting and drinking and seem a lot more earthy than monastic. Are you more impulsive now, after moving from being young and excited, through being meditative, and then becoming a human being again and getting back into...??McLAUGHLIN: You know, I hate that "human being." What was I, a robot?MUSICIAN: By "human being" I mean accepting the limitations we have. Being in touch with one's spirituality means renouncing oneself, right?McLAUGHLIN: Well, I had some peculiar views that were, years ago, more well-known. I don't broadcast them so much, but I still hold my peculiar views. They're valid to me insofar as I'm convinced of the great nature of human beings.MUSICIAN: But do you grip the view less tightly as you get older?McLAUGHLIN: No. I think it's all a question of perception, again. Have you ever tried living a spiritual life? Well, until you make the action you'll never know, that's all I can say. You can theorize about it till you're blue in the face.MALMSTEEN: What exactly are you referring to?McLAUGHLIN: Well, not that you renounce anything, but you impose a spiritual discipline on yourself. You get up at four in the morning and you meditate. You think about the nature of God, the nature of the universe, you meditate on the nature of the void - anything that is your ideal. Whatever inspires you. But keep going.
Whether you become a Zen Buddhist or you become a Sufi, or whatever, it doesn't matter. The thing is to impose another discipline on yourself, another structure, and you start to see your life and this universe differently, and that's important. If not we're just victims of whatever's going on around us, and I'm against that.MALMSTEEN: I've never had the motivation to do that. Because there's nothing I can do. As much as I don't want to be in this environment, I am in this environment, and I gotta be like what this environment is like. I can't change it.McLAUGHLIN: No, Yngwie, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the environment. Your environment is perfect. The world is incredible, everything's perfect. It's the way we view it, that's all I'm talking about.MUSICIAN: Yngwie, can you foresee yourself ever doing some meditative acoustic music, cutting your hair?MALMSTEEN: See, I just happen to be very happy in this point in my life with what I'm doing. I find a lot of artistic satisfaction. Who knows what is gonna happen in the future? I'm very impulsive.

MUSICIAN: But you have to keep moving. As John pointed out, part of being an artist is looking at what you're doing and saying, "This isn't good anymore. I want something more from my music."MALMSTEEN: Well, I change by changing, I change members of my band. I keep getting the same questions: "Why don't you change?" "How come you don't start playing more blues?" "Why don't you do that, why don't you do this?" Listen, I just happen to be very happy with my style. In fact, if I may be so bold....McLAUGHLIN: Be bold!MALMSTEEN: ... not many players canboast that they have their own music style. I'm happy with that. You know, nobody comes up to Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton and goes, "How come you don't play more classical arpeggios in your blues solos?"MUSICIAN: Well, there's more potential for you as a young, facile guitarist to change and grow. You look at it as an insult.MALMSTEEN: Well, I don't look at it like an insult, but I just live more like... I feel like a big fuckin' question mark, really.McLAUGHLIN: The question is a trap. But if you ask me the same question - "So what are you going to do? How are you going to grow, how do you see yourself in 10 years?" This is realy difficult.MUSICIAN: That's not the question. The question was, Do you think you constantly need to be dissatisfied with what you are in order to grow as an artist? Yngwie said, "Well, I fire members of my band." He's pretty dictatorial, which cuts down on how much you can learn from other players.McLAUGHLIN: Have you ever played with him?MUSICIAN: No.McLAUGHLIN: Then you don't know. When you're working with musicians, they've got to love what they do. You can give them ideas. You can say, "Okay, put the backbeat on the four or the one," or to the bass player, "Just stay down, don't go up, stay down on the low strings." And they're going to do what they want to do.MALMSTEEN: I give them the direction to go in. My new keyboard player added a lot to the new record. And the bass player did his own little bits.

MUSICIAN: Yngwie had an incredible keyboard player (Jens Johannson) before he changed his band around, and because of personality...MALMSTEEN: Nah, I'll tell you exactly why. Because I feed off of musicians. I feed off of their enthusiasm and their passion for the music, and there was no passion anymore. With the new band, I've never been so inspired, because they're really enthusiastic. To me, that's a change.MUSICIAN: John didn't you have a similar problem with Billy Cobham?McLAUGHLIN: No, no, no. You see how things get deformed. It wasn't Billy Cobham at all. Billy was always cool, but I had problems with Jan Hammer and Jerry Goodman. They were just fucking jerks! And you can print it, it's alright. Jerry's cool now, but Jan still has some weird problem with me after 20 years.
We all know how to deal with failure much more than we know how to deal with success. I could be wrong. All I know is that that's really the only bad experience, with those two, and it was curiously one of the most popular groups that I played in. Funny, huh?

MUSICIAN: Yngwie has never worked for anybody. Do you think he would benefit from a temporary commitment to someone else's music? You've said Miles was good at bringing things out that you didn't know you had in you.McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, but it was another world. Don't forget, in spite of everything he says - "I'm not a jazz musician" - Miles' discipline is jazz. And Yngwie is by himself. I mean, I've heard him play and he's a confirmed rock'n'roller. I love to hear that. But the equivalent of Miles doesn't really exist in the rock'n'roll world. Miles is like a godfather to a lot of people, including myself.MALMSTEEN: At the same time as I say I am playing rock'n'roll, the classical influence is so big. I mean,all the chord progressions are classical. Even a heavy song like "The Fury," with awakadumwakadum double bass drum, if you play it on the piano, is completely classical. I mean, it's the way Mozart would arrange, the inverted chords. But I'm doing it with the power of rock'n'roll: the sound of distorted power chords, a double bass drum, the big fat bombs and shit, but the arpeggios... ? I'm sticking in things that normal rock'n'roll does not contain.

MUSICIAN: I also notice you're using a wah-wah pedal.MALMSTEEN: Yeah, my Hendrix influence definitely comes in.MUSICIAN: Ask John what it was like to jam with Hendrix.MALMSTEEN: [to John] You fuck! Sorry. Did you?McLAUGHLIN: [pause] Sure.MALMSTEEN: What was it like?McLAUGHLIN: Gee, I loved Jimi, man.MALMSTEEN: He's my fucking hero. I didn't mean that, I'm sorry.McLAUGHLIN: You can say anything you like, asshole.

MALMSTEEN: You know what I did? My mother gave me a guitar on my fifth birthday, right?McLAUGHLIN: Lucky you.MALMSTEEN: She wanted me to be a musician. She gave me piano lessons, she gave me ballet lessons, she gave me vocal lessons, flute lessons, trumpet lessons, everything.McLAUGHLIN: And nothing worked.MALMSTEEN: No, nothing. I hated music. On the 18th of September, 1970, I saw a show on television with Jimi Hendrix, and I said, "Wow!" I took the guitar off the wall, and I haven't stopped since. That's what triggered me. It wasn't the guitar playing, it was his guitar style.McLAUGHLIN: Jimi was a revolutionary.MALMSTEEN: He was so cool, man. He was the greatest.McLAUGHLIN: He was a revolutionary.MALMSTEEN: As far as coolness, you know. As far as coolness, he was the coolest.

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